In this blog post, we’ll start with the “Information Superhighway” and the concept of two-way communication that Nam June Paik imagined, and explore the birth and evolution of social media and social networking services (SNS), the characteristics of leading platforms like Facebook and X, and the new business models and social impacts created by SNS.
“Someday, everyone will have their own TV.” Nam June Paik, a pioneer of video art, had long viewed television not merely as a medium for one-way transmission of information, but as a medium for creative communication. When he tapped lightly on a television screen—which was pouring out information unilaterally—and discovered that the image shook, he described this phenomenon as a kind of “counterattack” against television. Nam June Paik once imagined a future where humanity would traverse the “Electronic Superhighway,” and he described people in this era of two-way communication—where thoughts could be exchanged with distant others without having to move much—using the concept of the “Nomade Stationnaire” (sedentary nomad). Today, we no longer need to “tap” on a television screen to fight back against one-way media. This is because a new medium—one that goes beyond television and allows anyone to produce and disseminate information while immediately seeing others’ reactions—has become deeply embedded in our daily lives.
The term “SNS revolution” was once widely used. This is because social network services (SNS) have brought about significant changes not only in interpersonal communication but also in the economy, society, politics, culture, journalism, and the broader internet ecosystem. SNS generally refers to online services that enable people to form and maintain relationships and exchange information and content via the internet. One of the key reasons for the rapid spread of SNS is that it has significantly reduced the time and space constraints inherent in human communication. Today, with the widespread adoption of smartphones and mobile internet, people can participate in communication without being greatly constrained by time or place, and individuals can be consumers, producers, and distributors of content all at once. Social networking services have now moved beyond being a passing trend to become one of the core means of communication that make up the modern internet ecosystem.
A concept frequently used alongside “social networking services” is “social media.” While the two terms are closely related and are often used interchangeably in everyday language, strictly speaking, they are not exactly the same. “Media” generally refers to a medium that enables the storage, transmission, and exchange of information. Social media, on the other hand, broadly refers to internet-based services and platforms that allow users to produce content, share it with others, and interact with one another. SNS can be viewed as a specific type of social media service that places particular emphasis on connecting people and fostering relationships. However, since today’s platforms offer a combination of SNS, video, messaging, shopping, news, and community features, it has become more difficult than in the past to clearly distinguish between SNS and social media. Therefore, to properly understand SNS, it is necessary to examine the technological background behind the emergence of social media, the evolution of the web, the formation of people-centered networks, and how these platforms generate economic value.
The emergence of social media is closely linked to advancements in computer and communication technologies. Following the development of early electronic digital computer technology, computers evolved beyond mere calculating devices into general-purpose machines capable of storing and processing information. Subsequently, ARPANET was established through a research project supported by the U.S. Department of Defense, and as various computer networks were connected based on Internet protocols, the foundation for today’s Internet was laid. Later, with the advent of the World Wide Web (WWW), proposed by Tim Berners-Lee, the Internet rapidly expanded into a space where general users could easily search for and access documents and information. Therefore, it is accurate to understand that ARPANET and the World Wide Web are not the same thing; rather, the development of ARPANET and other computer networks laid the foundation for the Internet, while the World Wide Web evolved into a representative information service operating on top of that Internet.
Early Internet users connected to the network using telephone lines and modems, exchanging messages via email and bulletin boards. Later, with the emergence of Internet bulletin boards and personal homepages, individuals were able to publicly share their thoughts and information in the online space. Advances in communication technology and computer engineering transformed the web environment—which had been centered on relatively static websites and information consumption—into one that emphasizes user openness, participation, and sharing. The term “Web 2.0” is widely used to describe this trend. Web 2.0 does not refer to a completely separate technology or a new internet network distinct from the existing web. Rather, it is a concept that describes the evolution of the web—where users moved beyond simply consuming content to actively producing it, sharing it with others, and participating in the creation of services—and the philosophy behind this shift.
Based on this web environment, various forms of social media—such as blogs, wikis, video-sharing services, and online communities—have flourished. As blogs enabled individuals to publicly accumulate and share their thoughts, experiences, and knowledge, the web evolved from a space for merely viewing information into a platform where users actively participate. Advances in search engines bridged the gap between vast amounts of content and users, while the widespread adoption of high-speed internet, wireless communications, and smartphones created an environment where people can access the internet anytime, anywhere. Smartphones, in particular, ushered in an era where individuals can produce and share content in real time by combining cameras, location services, the internet, messaging, and various applications into a single portable device. Combined with recommendation algorithms, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, today’s social media has evolved into an information ecosystem far more complex and vast than the Web 2.0 of the past.
As social media has evolved, the forms of these services have also become more specialized. While blogs were platforms relatively focused on content creation and accumulation, new types of services centered on interpersonal relationships and connections grew rapidly. This led to the full-scale proliferation of social networking services (SNS). People have a fundamental desire to check in on others, share details of their daily lives, discuss their interests, and form relationships with those who share similar backgrounds or tastes. Social networking services (SNS) were designed to efficiently fulfill these needs in the digital space, and as a result, they were able to grow to a global scale in a short period of time.
Notable examples of early social networking services include MySpace, Facebook, and Cyworld, while Second Life—which allowed users to interact with others in a virtual space—was also an important example illustrating the development of social media at the time. In South Korea, Cyworld’s “Mini-Homepage” gained immense popularity as a unique service that combined personal online identity with social connections. Subsequently, as smartphones became widespread, platforms with distinct features—such as Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and LinkedIn—grew in popularity, and as video platforms like YouTube also incorporated robust social features, the line between social networking sites and social media became increasingly blurred.
Facebook began as a service created by Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues to connect Harvard University students. Initially available only to a limited group of university members, it expanded its reach to other universities and eventually opened up to the general public, growing into a global platform. Subsequently, the company operating Facebook changed its name to Meta and evolved into a massive social platform company encompassing not only Facebook but also Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Currently, rather than reporting only Facebook’s user count as a key metric, Meta discloses the combined usage figures across all its major services; the number of people who use at least one of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or WhatsApp daily runs into the billions. According to the latest data released by Meta, the number of daily active users across these services exceeds 3.5 billion.
One of the key features that enabled Facebook’s rapid growth was the News Feed. The News Feed is a feature that continuously displays new posts from friends, pages, and groups on a user’s screen. Initially, it functioned primarily to show friends’ recent activities, but it later evolved to use algorithms to curate content that users were likely to find interesting. Various features were also added, including photos, videos, groups, pages, live streams, and Marketplace. Furthermore, reaction features such as “Like” allow users to easily express their preferences or emotions toward content, and these reactions, in turn, influence how others consume content. Unlike simple personal homepages, this structure has created a powerful network effect that encourages users to continuously engage with new information and interact with others. Facebook has presented its primary mission as empowering people to build communities and bringing the world closer together.
The service formerly known as Twitter is now operating under the name X. It grew in popularity due to its ability to quickly post short messages and retweet other users’ posts, and was referred to as a representative “microblogging” service because it focused on content shorter than typical blog posts. Initially, posts were limited to 140 characters, but the default limit for standard posts was later expanded to 280 characters. Currently, X Premium subscribers can write long posts of up to 25,000 characters, meaning the content formats have become significantly more diverse compared to the service’s early days, which centered on short messages.
On X, users can “follow” accounts from which they wish to receive updates and can repost or quote others’ posts to share them with their own followers. This structure allows information to spread very quickly along social networks. It was precisely this real-time nature and virality that made Twitter stand out in the past. There were even instances where events became known before traditional media could report them, as not only politicians, journalists, companies, and celebrities, but also ordinary users directly shared information from the scene. Today, with the integration of various content types—including not only text but also photos, videos, and real-time conversations—social media has evolved beyond a simple means of exchanging greetings to become a real-time information distribution network.
Social media is both a space for social communication and a massive business. Providing stable services to countless users requires enormous costs for data centers, servers, networks, software development, content management, and security. However, many social media platforms offer basic services for free. Instead of users paying directly, these platforms generate revenue through advertising, paid subscriptions, e-commerce, digital content, and various value-added services. In particular, advertising remains the core revenue source for large-scale social media platforms. In Meta’s case, as shown in its recently released annual financial results, the majority of its total revenue came from advertising centered on Facebook and Instagram.
The reason the social media advertising model is so powerful is that it allows for highly targeted ad delivery based on users’ interests and behavior. By utilizing signals such as what content users interact with and what topics they show interest in, advertisers can expose ads to specific user groups with particular interests. This type of targeted advertising offers a different kind of efficiency compared to traditional mass media advertising. However, as societal demands for privacy protection grow and relevant regulations in various countries tighten, the standards governing the extent to which user data can be used for advertising are constantly evolving. Meta has also stated that privacy regulations and policy changes in mobile operating systems and browsers are affecting how ads are targeted and how their performance is measured.
One concept that frequently arises when describing the characteristics of internet-based businesses is “The Long Tail.” In traditional retail environments, the costs of displaying products or reaching customers were high, so it was efficient for companies to focus on a small number of popular items with high sales volumes. This is often linked to the Pareto Principle, which explains that a significant portion of overall performance stems from a few key items. However, the internet has significantly reduced the costs of storing, searching for, and connecting products or content to consumers. As a result, even though individual items may have low demand, combining countless niche products and content can create a substantial market.
Chris Anderson popularized this characteristic of the internet economy through the concept of the “Long Tail.” A similar principle can be observed in the social media and digital advertising markets. This is because these platforms can reach not only a small number of widely popular interests but also highly segmented user groups, such as those with niche hobbies, specialized fields, and regional interests. However, it is difficult to explain the revenue structure of today’s social media platforms solely through the Long Tail principle. In the actual platform economy, various factors work together, including network effects generated by a large user base, user engagement time, recommendation algorithms, advertising auction systems, data analysis, and the creator ecosystem. Therefore, while the Long Tail is a useful concept for understanding certain characteristics of the social media economy, it is difficult to view it as a single principle that explains the entire revenue structure of modern platforms.
In summary, social media can be likened to the “electronic highway” that Nam June Paik spoke of. People have long desired to communicate freely with those in distant places, but in traditional mass media, the entities capable of producing and disseminating information on a large scale were limited. This was because the system centered on a few media organizations—such as broadcasters and newspapers—producing information, which was then consumed by the general public. However, the situation changed with the development of the internet and the emergence of a web environment that emphasizes participation and sharing. Social networking platforms have created a vast information highway open to everyone, and on this platform, people have become active participants who not only consume content but also produce and distribute it themselves.
Social media companies invest massive amounts of capital to build and maintain this digital highway, but the users who gather on it and their activities, in turn, generate economic value. To use a road analogy, this is similar to how revenue is generated not by charging tolls for travel itself, but through the advertisements and commercial activities that spring up along a road used by countless people. Today, various business models—such as subscription services, creator revenue sharing, e-commerce, and enterprise services—are being added to this framework. Ultimately, the economic value of social media does not lie solely in servers or software but is generated by the network of relationships, content, interests, and interactions formed among countless users.
Modern people, who navigate countless intricately interconnected social media platforms via the internet and smartphones accessible from anywhere, bear a striking resemblance to the “sedentary nomads” envisioned by Nam June Paik. This is because, even while staying in one place, they can converse in real time with people on the other side of the globe, follow events unfolding around the world, and instantly share their thoughts and content with the world. Furthermore, as video calls, live streaming, virtual reality, augmented reality, AI translation, and generative AI converge, the temporal and spatial constraints on communication are becoming even more negligible. In that sense, it can be said that today, through social networking services, we are experiencing a significant portion of the future Nam June Paik envisioned.
However, connectivity and openness do not necessarily lead only to positive outcomes. Social media has played a crucial role in enabling citizens to share information and bring social issues into the public discourse. During the “Arab Spring,” including the Tunisian Revolution, social media played a significant role in bypassing the control of traditional media to disseminate information and connect protest participants. Research also suggests that social media contributed to the dissemination of information, the formation of networks, and the organization of collective action. However, attributing the success of the revolution solely to the “decisive role” of social media is an oversimplification. Multiple factors—including socioeconomic discontent, political oppression, existing civil society and offline organizations, and collective action on the ground—interacted, and researchers are evaluating the role of social media within this broader context.
The side effects and risks created by social media cannot be ignored either. As traffic on the “information superhighway” has exploded, misinformation and false information can spread rapidly, and a single individual’s mistake can sometimes trigger unforeseen social repercussions. Invasions of personal information and privacy, data management issues by platform operators, copyright and intellectual property infringements, crimes involving personal information, cyberbullying and collective attacks, hate speech, algorithmic information bias, and confirmation bias have all become critical challenges that modern social media must address. Furthermore, as AI-generated images, videos, and audio spread rapidly, determining the authenticity of information has become even more complex than in the past.
While technology innovates rapidly, social norms, laws, and institutions generally lag behind these changes. However, this does not mean that technological progress and social change can simply be halted. What is important is to develop rational institutions and social norms that minimize side effects while maximizing the benefits provided by new technologies. This is why we need discussions aimed at striking an appropriate balance between the responsibilities of platform companies and the rights of users; between freedom of expression and the prevention of harm; between the use and protection of personal information; and between algorithmic transparency and companies’ commercial rights. The faster technology changes, the broader the scope of issues that companies, governments, researchers, civil society, and the individuals who actually use these services must collectively address.
Nam June Paik once said, “An artist is someone who contemplates the future.” Just as he explored future modes of communication through the then-novel media of video and television, artists, technologists, and researchers today are investigating the next era that will be shaped by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and networked media. The “information superhighway,” which once seemed like a mere fantasy, has become a reality in the form of the internet and social media; now, not only humans but also text, images, and videos generated by artificial intelligence have begun to flow along that highway. No one can accurately predict the future of the web and social networks. However, one thing is clear: the responsibility to contemplate and shape that future does not lie solely with specific artists, technologists, or platform companies. This is because everyone living in our interconnected networked society is both a user of that information superhighway and a participant in determining its future direction.
